If they’re not a monopolist then where is the antitrust violation? This cease seems very weak to me, although I am not a lawyer. Even if you believe everything Apple did that they complained about was bad for consumers (which I disagree with), that doesn’t make it illegal. Companies being s***ty is nor a violation of the Sherman Act. Like, printer companies charging outrageous ink prices sucks but it’s not an antitrust issue. They go on and on about all the supposedly monopolistic things Apple did but their market definition- “performance smartphones“- seems weak to me.
Everything cited in the case is true, but the materials as to whether it is harmful or not is the actual basis of the case and we're not here to jury it. Agree or not, it's still been a major thorn for consumers even on this forum, as the vitriol toward Android is intense, and not warranted, but should count for something.
If this were literally any other market, it would be obvious. Microsoft saying everything on Windows has to be purchased through the Microsoft store and Microsoft taking a 30% cut of everything. ... yeah, there wouldn't be a lot of argument that this is bad. But apple does it? On IOS? Oh, that's ok. Even if they don't do it on a Mac.
And understand my words from my post (not quoted here) are the important bits -- you don't have to be declared a monopoly to be found engaging in monopolistic behavior, and that alone can incite change. Apple runs the app store and all payment processes as a monopolist on the platform. There is no choice on the platform. Every time this is brought up, people say "you do have a choice, buy Android" but that goes to the fundamental reason Spotify had an issue: on the platform they would be required to raise prices to compete fairly with the % apple fee, and compete against Apple Music. That's the essence of monopolistic behavior, just one example of many that do exist.
Bundling SMS into iMessage is monopolistic behavior as well. iMessage is a great product! But damn, citing history software bundling is freaking dangerous and limiting consumer choice is awful -- it's inherently what broke MS in the naughts. Yes, consumers have choices in apps, but Apple overlaid their product on top of a standard. It's not like they offered iMessage standalone with no SMS integration. Or maybe offered iMessage as an app on Android. That was actually considered at one point by apple (some proof out there somewhere in an internal exposed doc) but they decided against it to keep market share. Predatory, exclusionary, monopolistic behavior.
If iMessage was entirely separated from SMS there wouldn't be a factor at all. It's the only gateway short of 3rd party to communicate. It -was- the standard for a long time. And don't say that consumers have choice -- Microsoft went to the floor and nearly got split up over the "bundling" of IE back in the day, and there were choices there too, along with literally anything else you could download, with lots of stores, lots of options.
And this was just talking about the App store, payment systems, and SMS. There's quite a bit more in this thing. It's ok to not agree with it, I respect it, but it's not like this is not true or factual. The only real issue at hand is, does it hurt consumers -- and consumers doesn't necessarily mean only Apple fans.
I'm a fan of Apple, IOS and Android. This isn't or shouldn't be territorial. But the business that Apple is doing is not vanity, it's not favoritism, it's not pride. It's simply bad business - what they are doing is limiting consumers and developers to incentivize money for Apple. It's hard to really ignore that when you consider the profit margins on IOS for Apple compared to Mac, and how little the same principles being used for IOS aren't used there. Hypocrisy doesn't make for a great legal case.
